


First Lesson

by antennapedia



Category: Doctor Who RPF
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Guitars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-08-12 21:05:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7949146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antennapedia/pseuds/antennapedia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter teaches Jenna a little bit of guitar. Entirely fluffy friendship fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Lesson

"You want an electric to start. Acoustics have far too much string tension. You'll be fighting against the strings all the time. Frustrating. Take the SG."

"Not the Doctor's guitar?"

Peter thought about explaining scale lengths and Fender versus Gibson necks, then decided not to. Too much for the first time. "The Gibson's easier to play," was all he said.

He got behind her, arms around her, and helped her sling the strap over her shoulder. "Okay, hold it like that, great. On your knee there, hand on the neck like--" He took her hand in his and set it into place.

Jenna did what they all did and strummed across the strings, top to bottom. E-A-D-G-B-E. The B was, as usual, a cent or two flat, but Peter wasn't going to stop to tune it up just now. She was so close to him, against his chest, and it was all he could do not to think about her perfume and whatever it was she'd put in her hair. Or the makeup people had put into her hair; they both of them ended up wearing a lot of product on shooting days like this one.

Jenna strummed again and giggled, and said, "Doesn't sound like much yet, though. This where where I learn to shape chords, right?"

"Right! It's all about the shapes. The E-shaped chord is the same chord all over the fretboard, if you can barre across like this. Forefinger all the way across."

"The book I read said not to use my thumb, but you're using your thumb."

"Self-taught, so I use my thumb to fret the bottom E. You have tiny hands. You should use your thumb."

"Thanks," she said, drily.

Peter looked at Jenna's hands and her struggle to press the strings down and had a change of heart.

"Folk chords," he said. "Folk chords let as many open strings ring as you can. They're easier to play than the E and A barres, until you build some strength, but there are lots of shapes to learn. Here's D."

He set his hand over Jenna's and showed her where her fingers went. Top three strings. Well, bottom three strings physically, but he thought of them as the top because of pitch, and that was another thing that was hard to explain. The fretboard was its own landscape in his head, with territories defined by the dots and by those movable shapes. A real place, bars and dots, with colors and feelings and memories beyond just what fingers went where. Play here and it felt like wistfulness; play there and it vibrated with potential.

"A diamond shape," Jenna said.

"Yeah, the D diamond. And you skip the bottom string because E isn't part of the chord. Just play the top ones. Yeah, like that!"

It was recognizably a chord and he could feel Jenna vibrate with excitement in his arms. She played it again and again. Peter grinned down at her. He remembered this feeling. Hell, he still had it whenever he learned a new song, the moment it started sounding like something proper.

"Great! Arpeggiate it. Which means--"

"I know what it means, daft man. I had the usual childhood piano lessons." She plucked the strings in a random order, but of course it sounded good. Of course it did. She fooled around, trying variations until "Oh hey! I've heard this before!"

"You have! A hundred pop songs there, with that D." The SG was not a pop guitar, not at all, and it was all chunk when amplified, but it was pop enough played quietly like this. They'd found him a nice one, had the crew, and the frets were like butter. It was the best of all possible guitars to start on.

Jenna let go of the fretboard and squeaked. "Oh my god, I just made a guitar make a _sound_ , a real musical sound!"

"Right! And next I'll show you how to play A and G, and then we can learn a simple song."

But Jenna had the bit between her teeth and was strumming the D over and over. He could hear she had a sense of rhythm, could hear what she was striving for even though her fingers had to be hurting already.

"Teach me a Beatles song now! Something class, like A Hard Day's Night. I can play that chord, right? It's just a bang!"

"Oh God, Jenna, that's-- you _would_ want to learn that."

She would ask for hard things, she would. She was Jenna. She would never be satisfied with the easy stuff, with letting him coast, with letting him refuse to face facts, with letting him let her off easy.

Oh, Jenna.


End file.
